Playground

Playground

Jennifer Saginor

In the vein of ‘Running With Scissors’, this is the glitzy, glamorous and surreal story of a young girl who never learned where the party stopped and the real world began.

The daughter of Hugh Hefner’s personal physician and closest friend, a man who was immortalized in Motley Crue song Dr. Feelgood, spent most of her youth in the Playboy Mansion (and still visits every weekend). In this wholly original coming-of-age memoir, Jennifer Saginor recounts her time living a double life – as a child who had to teach herself how to survive, and as a fixture at the Playboy Mansion, where life was always a party, and where anything she wanted was at the touch of her fingertips.

This is a great summer read for anyone who wants to take a look inside the walls of the Playboy Mansion, as well as a heart wrenching look into the psychological effects of a glamorous, yet broken, upbringing.

Review Extract

A debut memoir recounts a childhood spent at Hugh Hefner’s knee. Saginor’s father was a close friend of the mogul, who actually gave him his own room in the Playboy Mansion. From the time Saginor was six, she and her younger sister spent a goodly amount of time there, even though their horrified mother got a court order to prevent her ex-husband from taking them to bunny-land.

Overall, the story she tells of sex, drugs, guns, more sex, more drugs, bouncing back and forth between the Mansion and high school, more sex, another gun. In addition, Saginor’s therapeutic revelations tend to the banal. She realizes that she had been seeking a mother figure in Kendall, and she shares with us the blinding revelation that “my parents may never be who I want them to be [but their] spirit will always be with me.” Occasionally titillating, more often tedious.

“Utterly Surreal. This is one of those books you just can’t put down.” Ben Affleck

“Utterly compelling and disturbing at the same time-Playground is the no- holds-barred memoir of a young girl who grew up inside the Playboy Mansion. A full-on account of how she virtually raised herself amidst the glitz, glam and drama of one of the most surreal places on earth. It’s one helluva book!” Larry King.

A fascinating insight into the workings of the Playboy empire in this book, available at The Booklovers Club